Duty begins with community

By JORDAN CARLEO-EVANGELIST Staff writer

Published 1:00 am, Tuesday, May 11, 2010

ALBANY -- Daniel Colonno's job as a city police commander often competes for time with his job as a father.

So his three sons -- ages 5, 7 and 10 -- have become a familiar sight around Center Station, the city's busiest police station located at the crossroads of Madison and Western avenues in the heart of Pine Hills.

They pick weeds or flowers, ferry memos between offices and occasionally attend community events with their father, who will be honored Thursday with Neighborhood Resource Center's Mayor Thomas Whalen Outstanding Public Official Award.

"I think it's important that my sons are a part of what it is that I do," said Colonno, 50, a West Hill native, originally a printer by trade, who joined the force 22 years ago. "I really want them to have a grasp of volunteerism and have a sense of duty and community."

In a city where the entire police department is in the midst of gradually reacquainting itself with its neighborhoods amid complaints about the withering of community policing, some residents in Pine Hills believe Colonno and the 80-plus officers he oversees are in many ways serving as a model.

The effort started in earnest after the October 2008 murder of University at Albany senior Richard Bailey when Pine Hills residents, already jittery about a spike in violent street crime, organized a public safety committee through the Pine Hills Neighborhood Association.

What followed was a newfound cooperation with police that not only helped, with the assistance of computer-aided policing to better target crime, bring about a 40 percent drop in the most serious crimes but also forge new relationships throughout the community to better address smaller, quality of life issues, Colonno said.

"He comes across as a very thoughtful person, being able to analyze the different public safety issues that we have," said Gene Solan, director of the Neighborhood Resource Center, a nonprofit group that promotes the growth of neighborhood associations and civic engagement.

"He's really inspired his public safety officers under his command to get out into the community and work cooperatively with it."

On that score, Colonno agrees that the gains that have been made in Pine Hills -- and other neighborhoods served by Center Station -- should be largely credited to the officers themselves.

"I'm just the figurehead of the station," he said. "It's less about what I'm doing and more about what the officers are doing day-in and day-out around here."

Colonno will be one of a handful of people honored Thursday.

The list also includes Harold Rubin, a longtime Center Square resident who helped found the NRC and was the first president of the Council of Albany Neighborhood Associations, and Virginia Hammer, a Pine Hills resident and secretary of the Pine Hills Neighborhood Association, who in recent years has devoted time to fighting for traffic calming measures on Madison Avenue.

Nicole's Catering & Restaurant will be honored as the outstanding neighborhood business, while the Midtown Neighborhood Watch will be honored as outstanding organization.

Albany Community Television, a citizen-led effort to record government meetings, and its founder, Center Square resident Elise Van Allen, will be honored as an outstanding communication tool.

Jordan Carleo-Evangelist can be reached at 454-5445 or by e-mail at jcarleo-evangelist@timesunion.com.